An alternative ending of Mockingjay
by Aranka Bloemberg
Summary: So I didn't like the ending of Mockingjay.. What am I gonna do about it? Right, write my own..
1. Chapter 25

_Owkeey, so this is my first post.. First and foremost: I certainly do NOT own The Hunger Games series, included Mockingjay... In the writing below, the bold-pieces are mine, the rest is written by Suzanne Collins.. I only changed the parts I didn't like. So in the first chapter, there isn't much I changed, the big changes will come in chapter 26 and 27.._

_One comment on my writing: Since I'm Dutch, English isn't my motherlanguage. I've tried to make as few mistakes (grammatically, vocabulary) as possible, but still it's possible there are some faults.. Please do not hate me for that :P_

_Please write and review! It will help me a lot... _

Chapter 25

Real or not real? I am on fire. The balls of flame that erupted from the parachutes shot over the barricades, through the snowy air, and landed in the crowd. I was just turning away when one caught me, ran its tongue up the back of my body and transformed me into something new. A creature as unquenchable as the sun.

A fire mutt knows only a single sensation: agony. No sight, no sound, no feeling except the unrelenting burning of flesh. Perhaps there are periods of unconsciousness, but what can it matter if I can't find refuge in them? I am Cinna's bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable. The feathers of flame that grow from my body. Beating my wings only fans the blaze. I consume myself, but to no end.

Finally, my wings begin to falter, I lose height, and gravity pulls me into a foamy sea the colour of Finnick's eyes. I float on my back, which continues to burn beneath the water, but the agony quiets to pain. When I am adrift and unable to navigate, that's when they come. The dead.

The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to follow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them. The ones I hated have taken to the water, horrible scaled things that tear my salty flesh with needle teeth. Biting again and again. Dragging me beneath the surface.

The small white bird tinged in pink dives down, buries her claws in my chest, and tries to keep me afloat. "_No, Katniss! No! You can't go!_"

But the ones I hated are winning, and if she clings to me, she'll be lost as well. "_Prim, let go!_" And finally she does.

Deep in the water, I'm deserted by all. There's only the sound of my breathing, the enormous effort it takes to draw the water in, push it out of my lungs. I want to stop, I try to hold my breath, but the sea forces its way in and out my will. "_Let me die. Let me follow the others,_" I beg whatever holds me here. There's no response.

**After what seemed hours, I can hear a sound in the far distance. And I feel a sharp pain in my lungs again. No, not the water! And another stab. "Stay here! I know you hear me, stay here!" Doesn't that person know I'm ready to go? I saw Prim flying, and wherever she goes, I want to go to. I curse the one who is inflicting even more pain than I already have.**

**Then I'm able to open my eyes. At first, all I see is total blackness. I twinge with my fingers, and I feel that someone it caressing them. I shake my head, trying to get ****rid of the black, I want to see who's there to take me back to the world of the living. Now I'm able to see contours, very familiar contours, and I sight. Of course Gale would come to the rescue.**

**Gale for one, looks like he's going to cry. One hand under my head, and the other holding my hand, he's looking me straight in the eye as if he can bring me back by just looking deep. **

**"Katniss, try not to move, your back is severely burned. As soon as possible, I'll try to get you out of this mess." Gale! How did he get here? But slowly a more urgent question pops in my head. I try to ask him to Gale, but I can only manage to groan with pain. "Shh, Catnip, just stay calm." He bows over and pressed his lips softly on my forehead. "I'm sorry", he whispers. Sorry for what? But then I feel my back being ripped apart. The pain holds on for a few seconds, and lessens again. I feel that my cheek now rests on the blooded street, Gale must've turned me so my back is spared.**

**"Gale," I'm able to whisper. "Yes?" Now he softly caresses my cheek. "What happened?" Hmm, my slow brain isn't able to formulate the right question. "What happened to Prim?" As I speak her name, thick tears are rolling down my cheek. Because I know what has happened. But I won't believe it. I can't believe it. **

**I see Gale face changing. He looks very pained now. "Prim.." His voice breaks. With a grating voice he continues: "She.. the fire.. I saw" and then I see some tears rolling over his face too. That's my cue. Now I'm sure of what I saw, of what I dreamt of.**

**My sister, my dearly beloved Prim, animal lover, nurse-to-be, my Prim has died.**

**It's too much for me to cope emotionally, so I faint again. The last thing I heard was Gale muttering to himself: "Shit, got to move". Then another loud crack and then nothing.**

Trapped for days, years, centuries maybe. Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead. So alone that anyone, anything no matter how loathsome would be welcome. **The moment I feel like I am going to fly again**, I finally have a visitor. **And for reasons unknown, the visitor is kind to me. He**'s sweet. Morphling. **The moment I recognize the feeling, I know I'm not dead, nor dying. **Coursing through my veins, easing the pain, lightening my body so that it rises back towards the air. **It's not like flying, but more like drifting. My body **rests again on the foam.

Foam. I really am floating on foam. I can feel it beneath the tips of my fingers, cradling parts of my naked body. There's much pain but there's also something like reality. The sandpaper of my throat. The smell of burn medicine from the first arena. The sound of my mother's voice. These things frighten me, and I try to return to the deep to make sense of them. But there's no going back. Gradually, I'm forced to accept who I am. A badly burned girl with no wings. With no fire. And no sister.

In the dazzling white hospital, the doctors work their magic on me. Draping my rawness in new sheets of skin. Coaxing the cells into thinking they are my own. Manipulating my body parts, bending and stretching the limbs to assure a good fit. I hear over and over how lucky I am. My eyes were spared. Most of my face was spared. My lungs are responding to treatment. I will be as good as new.

When my tender skin has toughened enough to withstand the pressure of sheets, more visitors arrive. The morphling opens the door to the dead and alive alike. Haymitch, yellow and unsmiling. Cinna, stitching a new wedding dress. Delly, prattling on about the niceness of people. My father sings all four stanzas of "The Hanging Tree" and reminds me that my mother – who sleeps in a chair between shifts – isn't to know about it. **Gale, whose face equals mine, burned physically and emotionally.**

One day, I awake to expectations and know I will not be allowed to live in my dreamland. I must take food by mouth. Move my own muscles. Make my way to the bathroom. A brief appearance by President Coin clinches it.

"Don't worry," she says. "I've saved him for you."

The doctors' puzzlement grows over why I'm unable to speak. Many tests are done, and while there's damage to my vocal cords, it doesn't account for it. **Even Gale doesn't seem to break through my silence. He doesn't visit very often, for which I'm glad - for a reason that counts for all visitors. I'm wondering why Peeta hasn't visited yet. I'm trying not to think of the one reason, the most devastating one.**

Finally, Dr Aurelius, a head doctor, comes up with the theory that I've become a mental, rather than physical, Avox. That my silence has been brought on by emotional trauma. Although he's presented with a hundred proposed remedies, he tells them to leave me alone. **Even Gale isn't allowed to my room.** **Still somehow**, **while **I don't ask about anyone or anything, people bring me a steady stream of the war: the Capitol fell the day the parachutes went off, President Coin leads Panem now, and troops have been sent out to put down the small remaining pockets of Capitol resistance. On President Snow: he's being held prisoner, awaiting trial and most certain execution. On my assassination team: Cressida and Pollux have been sent out into the districts to cover the wreckage of the was.

**I don't get to hear the information on my rescue first hand. I heard some people talk about it, I don't know who. ****Before the bombing, Gale somehow managed to knock out the Peacekeepers who attacked him, earning one bullet which scratched his knee. After the seconds bombings, Gale saw me screaming in the medics direction. He couldn't get close because of the Peacekeepers, who were frantically screaming and hitting anyone with their guns. Seeing he was already too late, he ran towards me, and tried to calm me, which obviously didn't work. So he forced me to the ground were he protected my body against the fire. Then, when the shooting continued, he dragged me out of the battlefield into the house where the peacekeepers kept him, **and taking two bullets in **that** attempt**. There he waited, without a gun, without anything to defend us, until the shooting would stop and he could take me to the hospital. After he was cured himself, he visited me sometimes, but since he didn't know anything to say and I didn't speak at all, he agreed to go **mopping up the Peacekeepers in 2.

Peeta's still in the burn unit. He made it to the City Circle after all. **Information** on my family: my mother buries her grief in her work.

Having no work, grief buries me. All that keeps me going is Coin's promise. That I can kill Snow. And when that's done, nothing will be left.

Eventually, I'm released from the hospital and given a room in the president's mansion to share with my mother. She's almost never there, taking her meals and sleeping at work. It falls to Haymitch to check on me, make sure I'm eating and using my medicines. It's not an easy job. I take to my old habits from District 13. Wandering unauthorized through the mansion. Into bedrooms and offices, ballrooms and baths. Seeking strange little hiding spaces. A closet of furs. A cabinet in the library. A long-forgotten bathtub in a room of discarded furniture. My places are dim and quiet and impossible to find. I curl up, make myself smaller, try to disappear entirely. Wrapped in silence, I slide my bracelet that reads MENTALLY DISORIENTED around and around my wrist.

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. There is no District 12. I am the Mockingjay. I brought down the Capitol. President Snow hates me. He killed my sister. Now I will kill him. And then the Hunger Games will be over…_

Periodically, I find myself back in my room, unsure whether I was driven by a need for morphling or if Haymitch ferreted me out. I eat the food, take the medicine and am required to bathe. It's not the water I mind, but the mirror that reflects my naked fire-mutt body. The skin grafts still retain a newborn-baby pinkness. The skin deemed damaged but salvageable looks red, hot, and melted in places. Patches of my former self gleam white and pale. I'm like a bizarre patchwork quilt of skin. Parts of my hair were singed off at odd lengths. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire. **How ironic**. I wouldn't much care except the sight of my body brings back the memory of the pain. And why I was in pain. And what happened just before the pain started. And how I watched my little sister become a human torch.

Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.

Dr Aurelius shows up sometimes. I like him because he doesn't say stupid thinks like how I'm totally safe, or that he knows I can't see it but I'll be happy again one day, or even that thinks will be better in Panem now. He just asks if I feel like talking, and when I don't answer, he falls asleep in his chair. In fact, I think his visits are largely motivated by his need for a nap. The arrangement works for both of us.

The time draws near, although I could not give you exact hours and minutes. President Snow has been tried and found guilty, sentenced to execution. Haymitch tells me, I hear talk of it as I drift past the guards in the hallways. Mu Mockingjay suit arrives in my room. Also my bow, looking no worse for wear, but no sheath of arrows. Either because they were damaged or more likely because I shouldn't have weapons. I vaguely wonder if I should be preparing for the event in some way, but nothing comes to mind.

Last one afternoon, after a long period in a cushioned window seat behind a painted screen, I emerge and turn left instead of right. I find myself in a strange part of the mansion, and immediately lose my bearings. Unlike the area where I'm quartered, there seems to be no one around to ask. I like it, though. Wish I'd found it sooner. It's so quiet, with the thick carpets and heavy tapestries soaking up the sound. Softly lit. Muted colours. Peaceful. Until I smell the roses. I dive behind some curtains, shaking too hard to run, while I await the mutts. Finally, I realize there are no mutts coming. So, what do I smell? Real roses? Could it be that I am near the garden where the evil things grow?

As I creep down the hall, the odour becomes overpowering. Perhaps not as strong as the actual mutts, but purer, because it's no competing with sewage and explosives. I turn a corner and find myself staring at two surprised guards. Not Peacekeepers, of course. There are no more Peacekeepers. But not the trim, grey-uniformed soldiers from 13 either. These two, a man and a woman, wear the tattered, thrown-together clothes of actual rebels. Still bandaged and gaunt, they are now keeping watch over the doorway to the roses. When I move to enter, their guns form an X in front of me.

"You can't go in, miss," says the man.

"Soldier," the woman corrects him. "You can't go in, Soldier Everdeen. President's orders."

I just stand there patiently waiting for them to lower their guns, for them to understand, without my telling them, that behind those doors is something I need. Just a rose. A single bloom. To place in Snow's lapel before I shoot him. My presence seems to worry the guards. They're discussing calling Haymitch, when a woman speaks up behind me. "Let her go in."

I know the voice but can't immediately place it. Not Seam, not 13, definitely not Capitol. I turn my head and find myself face to face with Paylor, the commander from 8. She looks even more beat up than she did at the hospital, but who doesn't?

"On my authority," says Paylor. "She has a right to anything behind that door." These are her soldiers, not Coin's. They drop their weapons without question and let me pass.

At the end of a short hallway, I push apart the glass doors and step inside. By now the smell's so strong that it begins to flatten out, as if there's no more my nose can absorb. The damp, mild air feels good on my hot skin. And the roses are glorious. Row after row of sumptuous blooms, in lush pink, sunset orange and even pale blue. I wander through the aisles of carefully pruned plants, looking but not touching, because I have learned the hard way how deadly there beauties can be. I know when I find it, crowning the top of a slender bush. A magnificent white bud just beginning to open. I pull my left sleeve over my hand so that my skin won't actually have to touch it, take up a pair of pruning shears, and have just positioned them on the stem when he speaks.

"That's a nice one."

My hand jerks; the shears snap shut, severing the stem.

"The colours are lovely, of course, but nothing says perfection like white."

I still can't see him, but his voice seems to rise up from an adjacent bed of roses. Delicately pinching the stem of the bud through the fabric of my sleeve, I move slowly around the corner and find him sitting on a stool against the wall. He's as well groomed and finely dressed as ever, but weighted down with manacles, ankle shackles, tracking devices. In the bright light, his skin's a pale, sickly green. He holds a white handkerchief spotted with fresh blood. Even in his deteriorated state, his snake eyes shine bright and cold. "I was hoping you'd find you ways to my quarters."

His quarters. I have trespassed into his home, the way he slithered into mine last year, hissing threats with his bloody, rosy breath. This greenhouse is one of his rooms, perhaps his favourite; perhaps in better times he tended the plants himself. But now it's part of his prison. That's why the guards halted me. And that's why Paylor let me in.

I'd supposed he would be secured in the deepest dungeon that the Capitol had to offer, not cradled in the lap of luxury. Yet Coin left him here. To set a precedent, I guess. So that if in the future she ever fell from grace, it would be understood that presidents – even the most despicable – get special treatment. Who knows, after all, when her own power might fade?

"There are so many things we should discuss, but I have a feeling your visit will be brief. So, first things first." He begins to cough, and when he removes the handkerchief from his mouth, it's redder. "I wanted to tell you how very sorry I am about your sister."

Even in my deadened, drugged condition, this sends a stab of pain through me. Reminding me that there are no limits to his cruelty. And how he will go to his grave trying to destroy me.

"So wasteful, so unnecessary. Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact, I was just about to issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes." His eyes are glued on me, unblinking, so as not to miss a second of my reaction. But what he's said makes no sense. When _they_ released the parachutes? "Well, you really didn't think I gave the order, did you? Forget the obvious fact that if I'd had a working hovercraft at my disposal, I'd have been using it to make an escape. But that aside, what purpose could it have served? We both know I'm not above killing children, but I'm not wasteful. I take life for very specific reasons. And there was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of Capitol children. None at all."

I wonder if the next fit of coughing is staged so that I can have time to absorb his words. He's lying. Of course, he's lying. But there's something struggling to free itself from the lie as well. **I should know his character well enough by now for knowing what he's capable of doing.**

"However, I must concede it was a masterful move on Coin's part. The idea that I was bombing our own helpless children instantly snapped whatever frail allegiance my people still felt to me. There was no real resistance after that. Did you know it aired live? You can see Plutarch's hand there. And in the parachutes. Well, it's that sort of thinking that you look for in a Head Gamemaker, isn't it?" Snow dabs the corners of his mouth. **I just manage to think, **_**the thinking of a Head Gamemaker**_**, before he continues.** "I'm sure he wasn't gunning for your sister, but these things happen."

I'm not with Snow now. I'm in Special Weaponry back in 13 with Gale and Beetee. Looking at the designs based on Gale's traps. That played on human sympathies. The first bomb killed the victims. The second, the rescuers. Remembering Gale's words.

"_Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta._"

"My failure," says Snow, "was being to slow to grasp Coin's plan. To let the Capitol and districts destroy one another, and then step in to take power with Thirteen barely scratched. Make no mistake, she was intending to take my place right from the beginning. I shouldn't be surprised. After all, it was Thirteen that started the rebellion that led to the Dark Days, and then abandoned the rest of the districts when the tide turned against it. But I wasn't watching Coin. I was watching you, Mockingjay. And you were watching me. I'm afraid we have both been played for fools."

I refuse for this to be true. Some things even I can't survive. I utter my first words since my sister's death. "I don't believe you."

Snow shakes his head in mock disappointment. "Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other."


	2. Chapter 26

_Okey, So the last chapter didn't have many changings.. This chapter contains the last conversation between Gale and Katniss... So of course now there will be some.. _

_Please R&R_

Chapter 26

Out in the hall, I find Paylor standing in exactly the same spot. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asks.

I hold up the white bud in answer and then stumble past her. I must have made it back to my room, because the next thing I know, I'm filling a glass with water from the bathroom faucet and sticking the rose in it. I sink to my knees on the cold tile and squint at the flower, as the whiteness seems hard to focus on in the stark fluorescent light. My finger catches the inside of my bracelet, twisting it like a tourniquet, hurting my wrist. I'm hoping the pain will help me hang on to reality the way it did for Peeta. I must hang on. I must know the truth about what has happened.

There are two possibilities, although the details associated with them may vary. First, as I've believed, that the Capitol sent in that hovercraft, dropped the parachutes and sacrificed its children's lives, knowing the recently arrived rebels would go to their aid. There's evidence to support this. The Capitol's seal on the hovercraft, the lack of any attempt to blow the enemy out of the sky, and their long history of using children as pawns in their battle against the districts. Then there's Snow's account. That a Capitol hovercraft manned by rebels bombed the children to bring a speedy end to the war. But if this was the case, why didn't the Capitol fire on the enemy? Did the element of surprise throw them? Had they no defences left? Children are precious to 13, or so it has always seemed. Well, not me, maybe. Once I had outlived my usefulness, I was expendable. Although I think it's been a long time since I've been considered a child in this war. And why would they do it knowing their own medics would likely respond and be taken out by the second blast? They wouldn't. They couldn't. Snow's lying. Manipulating me as he always has. Hoping to turn me against the rebels and possibly destroy them. Yes. Of course.

Then what's nagging at me? Those double-exploding bombs, for one. It's not that the Capitol couldn't have the same weapon, it's just that I'm sure the rebels did. Gale and Beetee's brainchild. Then there's the fact that Snow made no escape attempt, when I know him to be the consummate survivor. It seems hard to believe he didn't have a retreat somewhere, some bunker stocked with provisions where he could live out the rest of his snaky little life. **So, in that point of view, the hovercraft couldn't have been his'. But how did the rebels got their hands on a Capitol's hovercraft? **And finally, there's his assessment of Coin. What's irrefutable isthat she's done exactly what she said. Let the Capitol and the districts run one another into the ground and then sauntered in to take power. Even if that was her plan, it doesn't mean she dropped those parachutes. Victory was already in her grasp. Everything was in her grasp.

Except me.

I recall Bogg's response when I admitted I hadn't put much thought into Snow's successor. "_If your immediate answer isn't Coin, then you're a threat. You're the face of the rebellion. You may have more influence than any other single person. Outwardly, the most you've ever done is tolerated her._"

Suddenly, I'm thinking of Prim, who was not yet fourteen, not yet old enough to be granted the title of soldier, but somehow working on the front lines. How did such a thing happen? That my sister would have wanted to be there, I have no doubt. That she would be more capable than many older than she is a given. But for all that, someone very high up would have had to approve putting a thirteen-year-old in combat. Did Coin do it, hoping that losing Prim would push me completely over the edge? Or, at least, firmly on her side? I wouldn't even have had to witness it in person. Numerous cameras would be covering the City Circle. Capturing the moment for ever.

No, now I am going crazy, slipping into some state of paranoia. Too many people would know of the mission. Word would get out. Or would it? Who would have to know besides Coin, Plutarch, and a small, loyal or easily disposable crew?

I badly need help working this out, only everyone I trust is dead. Cinna. Boggs. Finnick. Prim. There's Peeta, but he couldn't do any more than speculate, and who knows what state his mind's in, anyway. And that leaves only Gale. He's far away, but even if he were beside me, could I confide in him? What would I say, how could I phrase it, without implying that it was his bomb that killed Prim? The impossibility of that idea, more than any, is why Snow must be lying. **I don't want any line from Gale to the bombing, he mustn't be related to it in any way. I think of Gale, now in District 2, and I wish he was here so I could at least try to open up the subject.**

Ultimately, there's only one person to turn to who might know what happened and might still be on my side. To broach the subject at all will be a risk. But while I think Haymitch might gamble with my life in the arena, I don't think he'd rat me out to Coin. Whatever problems we may have with each other, we prefer resolving our differences one-on-one.

I scramble off the tiles, out the door and across the hall to his room. When there's no response to my knock, I push inside. Ugh. It's amazing how quickly he can defile a space. Half-eaten plates of food, shattered liquor bottles and pieces of broken furniture from a drunken rampage scatter his quarters. He lies, unkempt and unwashed, in a tangle of sheets on the bed, passed out.

"Haymitch," I say, shaking his leg. Of course, that's insufficient. But I give it a few more tries before I dump the pitcher of water in his face. He comes to with a gasp, slashing blindly with his knife. Apparently, the end of Snow's reign didn't equal the end of his terror.

"Oh. You," he says. I can tell by his voice that he's still loaded.

"Haymitch," I begin.

"Listen to that. The Mockingjay found her voice." He laughs. "Well, Plutarch's going to be happy." He takes a swig from a bottle. "Why am I soaking wet?" I lamely drop the pitcher behind me into a pile of dirty clothes.

"I need your help," I say.

Haymitch belches, filling the air with white liquor fumes. "What is it, sweetheart? More boy trouble?" I don't know why, but this hurts me in a way Haymitch rarely can. It must show on my face, because even in his drunken state, he tries to take it back. "OK, not funny." I'm already at the door. "Not funny! Come back!" By the thud of his body hitting the floor, I assume he tried to follow me, but there's no point.

I zigzag through the mansion and disappear into a wardrobe full of silken things. I yank them from hangers until I have a pile and then burrow into it. In the lining of my pocket, I find a stray morphling tablet and swallow it dry, heading off my rising hysteria. It's not enough to right things, though. I hear Haymitch calling me in the distance, but he won't find me in his condition. Especially not in this new spot. Swathed in silk, I feel like a caterpillar in a cocoon awaiting metamorphosis. I always supposed that to be a peaceful condition. At first it is. But as I journey into night, I feel more and more trapped, suffocated by the slippery bindings, unable to emerge until I have transformed into something of beauty. I squirm, trying to shed my ruined body and unlock the secret to growing flawless wings. Despite enormous effort, I remain a hideous creature, fired into my current form by the blast from the bombs.

The encounter with Snow opens the door to my old repertoire of nightmares. It's like being stung by tracker jackers again. A wave of horrifying images with a brief respite I confuse with waking – only to find another wave knocking me back. When the guards finally locate me, I'm sitting on the floor of the wardrobe, tangled in silk, screaming my head off. I fight them at first, until they convince me they're trying to help, peel away the choking garments, and escort me back to my room. On the way, we pass a window and I see a grey, snowy dawn spreading across the Capitol.

A very hungover Haymitch waits with a handful of pills and a tray of food that neither of us has the stomach for. He makes a feeble attempt to get me to talk again but, seeing it's pointless, sends me to a bath someone has drawn. The tub's deep, with three steps to the bottom. I ease down into the warm water and sit, up to my neck in suds, hoping the medicine kick in soon. My eyes focus on the rose that has spread its petals overnight, filling the steamy air with its strong perfume. I rise and reach for a towel to smother it, when there's a tentative knock and the bathroom door opens, revealing three familiar faces. They try to smile at me, but even Venia can't conceal her shock at my ravaged mutt body. "Surprise!" Octavia squeaks, and then bursts into tears. I'm puzzling over their reappearance when I realize that this must be it, the day of the execution. They've come to prep my for the cameras. Remake me to Beauty Base Zero. No wonder Octavia's crying. It's an impossible task **to even reach Beauty Base minus Ten.**

They can barely touch my patchwork of skin for fear of hurting me, so I rinse and dry off myself. I tell them I hardly notice the pain any more, but Flavius still winces as he drapes a robe around me. In the bedroom, I find another surprise. Sitting upright in a chair. Polished from her metallic gold wig to her patent leather high heels, gripping a clipboard. Remarkably unchanged except for the vacant look in her eyes.

"Effie," I say.

"Hello, Katniss." She stands and kisses me on the cheek as if nothing has occurred since our last meeting, the night before the Quarter Quell. "Well, it looks like we've got another big, big, big day ahead of us. So why don't you start your prep and I'll just pop over and check on the arrangements."

"OK," I say to her back.

"They say Plutarch and Haymitch had a hard time keeping her alive," comments Venia under her breath. "She was imprisoned after your escape, so that helps."

It's quite a stretch. Effie Trinket, rebel. But I don't want Coin killing her, so I make a mental note to present her that way if asked. "I guess it's good Plutarch kidnapped you three after all."

"We're the only prep team still alive. And all the stylists from the Quarter Quell are dead," says Venia. She doesn't say who specifically killed them. I'm beginning to wonder if it matters. She gingerly takes one of my scarred hands and holds it out for inspection. "Now, what do you think for the nails? Red or maybe a jet black?"

Flavius performs some beauty miracle on my hair, managing to even out the front while getting some of the longer locks to hide the bald spots in the back. My face, since it was spared from the flames, presents no more than the usual challenges. Once I'm in Cinna's Mockingjay suit, the only scars visible are on my neck, forearms and hands. Octavia secures my Mockingjay pin over my heart and we step back to look in the mirror. I can't believe how normal they've made me look on the outside when inwardly I'm such a wasteland.

There's a tap at the door and Gale steps in. "Can I have a minute?" he asks. In the mirror, I watch my prep team. Unsure of where to go, they bump into one another a few times and then closet themselves in the bathroom. Gale comes up behind me and we examine each other's reflection. **I see his face with here and there some burned spots, then I let my eyes over his body to his hands. I guess I'm not shocked to see that they are odd looking, the same burned-colour as has my back. Fire doesn't smothers it self. He must've suffered those injuries while trying to rescue me.**

**My eyes go back to his face and **I'm searching for something to hang on to, some sign of the girl and boy who met by chance in the woods five years ago and became inseparable. **Outwardly, he doesn't seem to have changed a lot. The deep line between his eyes has grown deeper, probably from all the hate that has reflected on his face. His mouth trembles a little and I think I see his eyes tear a little though he tries not to cry in front of me. **

**I think of the way we both have changed these last two years. **I'm wondering what would have happened to them if the Hunger Games had not reaped the girl. If she would have fallen in love with the boy, married him even. And sometime in the future, when the brothers and sisters had been raised up, escaped with him into the woods and left 12 behind for ever. **Then I'm thinking that's a impossible future image. The revolution would've started, with or without my actions in the arena. People were dying from starvation, diseases. The rebellion would've happened anyway and Gale would've participated anyway. And me? Would I've done something that would earn me the title of icon of the rebellion? Probably not. Okay, so he has changed from a helpless boy, who could only shout at the Capitol in the woods to someone, who actually defeated the oppression. Have I been through the same transformations?**

"I brought you this." Gale holds up a sheath. When I take it, I notice it holds a single, ordinary arrow. "It's supposed to be symbolic. You firing the last shot of the war."

"What if I miss?" I say. "Does Coin retrieve it and bring it back to me? Or just shoot Snow through the head herself?"

"You won't miss." Gale adjusts the sheath on my shoulder.

We stand there, face to face, not meeting each other's eyes. "**Why weren't you here these last couple of days to visit me?**"He doesn't answer, so finally I just say it. "Was it your bomb?"

"I don't know. Neither does Beetee," he says. "Does it matter? You'll always be thinking about it."

He waits for me to deny it; I want to deny it. Even now I can see the flash that ignites her, feel the heat of the flames. **Was it really Gale who murdered her? I don't even want to think it. It was the rebels. The rebels and everyone who agreed to their actions. Am I partly guilty as well for not arguing with Gale not to use that kind of bombs when I had the chance? Did I have the possibility of averting Prim's awful destiny? Still, instead of denying it, I shake, almost imperceptible, my head. That's my answer, silence.**

"That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family. **Making sure the war would end so no more children would be send to the Hunger Games. To end the cruelty," **he says.** I'm still looking at the ground. "And now the cruelty has ended," I whisper. "Please remember I did it for you, for your family. I.. loved Prim, you know that." I can't take this. Hearing Prim's name out of his mouth. I'm trembling. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't his fault! I'm very bad at convincing myself, so I'm almost glad he interrupts my thinking, not expecting an answer from me. **"Shoot straight, OK?" He touches my cheek **softly, as if it was burned as well and should be treated with care. I can almost feel the cured blisters on his hand reminding me of the bombs. My cheek heats up a little, leaving a new trail of fire where Gale's fingers went. Then, he** leaves.

I want to call him back and tell him that I was wrong. That I'll figure out a way to make peace with this. To remember the circumstances under which he created the bomb. Take into account my own inexcusable crimes. Dig up the truth about who dropped the parachutes. Prove it wasn't the rebels. Forgive him. **But it's way too early. I can't forgive him. I was never the forgiving type. **I'll just have to deal with the pain, **which is soaring through me right now. I now not only have lost my little sister, but also the best friend one can think of. The one who loved my family most after myself. But also the one who maybe has killed my sister.**

Effie comes in to usher me to some kind of meeting. I collect my bow and at the last minute remember the rose, glistening in its glass of water. When I open the door to the bathroom, I find my prep team sitting in a row on the edge of the tub, hunched and defeated. I remember I'm not the only one whose world has been stripped away. "**Thanks, for giving me a moment with Gale. You also did a great work on me, I never thought I could look like this again." Venia stands up and takes my hand in hers but says nothing. So I go on, **"come on, we've got an audience waiting."

I'm expecting a production meeting in which Plutarch instructs me where to stand and gives me my cue for shooting Snow. Instead, I find myself sent into a room where six people sit around a table. Peeta, Johanna, Beetee, Haymitch, Annie and Enobaria. They all wear the grey rebel uniforms from 13. No one looks particularly well. **Especially not Annie. When did they tell her about Finnick's atrocious death? How did she handle it with her mental state of mind? She's staring blankly in front of her, probably seeing other things than the room full of people. A wet trail is visible on her face, but she's not crying. **"What's this?" I say.

"We're not sure," Haymitch answers. "It appears to be a gathering of the remaining victors."

"We're all that's left?" I ask.

"The price of celebrity," says Beetee. **I try not to give him a loathsome stare**.** Gale's not the only one to blame.** "We were targeted from both sides. The Capitol killed the victors they suspected of being rebels. The rebels killed those thought to be allied with the Capitol."

Johanna scowls at Enobaria. "So what's she doing here?"

"_She_ is protected under what we call the Mockingjay Deal," says Coin as she enters behind me. "Wherein Katniss Everdeen agreed to support the rebels in exchange for captured victor' immunity. Katniss has upheld her side of the bargain, and so shall we."

Enobaria smiles at Johanna. "Don't look so smug," says Johanna. "We'll kill you anyways."

"Sit down, please, Katniss," says Coin, closing the door. I take a seat between Annie and **Johanna**, carefully placing Snow's rose on the table. As usual, Coin gets right to the point. "I've asked you here to settle a debate. Today we will execute Snow. In the previous weeks, hundreds of his accomplices in the oppression of Panem have been tried and now await their own deaths. However, the suffering in the districts has been so extreme that these measures appear insufficient to the victims. In fact, many are calling for a complete annihilation of those who held Capitol citizenry. However, in interest of maintaining a sustainable population, we cannot afford this."

Through the water in the glass, I see a distorted image of one of Peeta's hand. The burn marks. We are both fire mutts now. My eyes travel up to where the flames licked across his forehead, singeing away his brows but just missing his eyes. Those same blue eyes that used to meet mine and then flit away at school. Just as they do now. **I'm wondering what **_**his**_** state of mind is. Does he still want to kill me sometimes, or is he only confused right now?**

"So, an alternative has been placed on the table," **Coin continues**. "Since my colleagues and I can come to no consensus, it has been agreed that we will let the victors decide. A majority of four will approve the plan. No one may abstain from the vote. What has been proposed is that in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power."

All seven of us turn to her. "What?" says Johanna.

"We hold another Hunger Games using Capitol children," says Coin.

"Are you joking?" asks Peeta.

"No. I should also tell you that if we do hold the Games, it will be known it was done with your approval, although the individual breakdown of your votes will be kept secret for your own security," Coin tells us.

"Was this Plutarch's idea?" asks Haymitch.

"It was mine," says Coin. "It seemed to balance the need for vengeance with the least loss of life. You may cast your votes." **In a split second, I'm thinking of Gale, wishing for a button that would eliminate the whole Capitol citizenry at once. But that was when the victory was no where near. He would truly hate the idea of killing just for fun. Unnecessary killing. He only did what he thought was necessary. We might want to vengeance ourselves in another way. Coin clearly thinks differently.**

**Then, **Peeta bursts out: "No! I vote no, of course! We can't have another Hunger Games!"

"Why not?" Johanna retorts. "It seems very fair to me. Snow even has a granddaughter. I vote yes."

"So do I," says Enobaria, almost indifferently. "Let them have a taste of their own medicine."

"This is why we rebelled! Remember?" Peeta looks at the rest of us. "Annie?"

"I vote no with Peeta," she says. "So would Finnick if he were here."

"But he isn't, because Snow's mutts killed him," Johanna reminds her. **Annie stays calm under that remark outwardly, but I can tell that she feels like screaming right now.**

"No," says Beetee. "It would set a bad precedent We have to stop viewing one another as enemies. At this point, unity is essential for our survival. No."

"We're down to Katniss and Haymitch," says Coin.

Was it like this then? Seventy-five years or so ago? Did a group of people sit around and cast their votes on initiating the Hunger Games? Was there dissent? Did someone make a case for mercy that was beaten down by the calls of the deaths of the districts' children? The scent of Snow's rose curls up into my nose, down into my throat, squeezing it tight with despair. All those people I loved, dead, and we are discussing the next Hunger Games in an attempt to avoid wasting life. Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change **if we keep up like this.**

I weight my options carefully, think everything through. Keeping my eyes on the rose, I say, "I vote yes … for Prim."

"**You're not serious, Katniss," Peeta's yelling. "You **_**know**_** Prim wouldn't ever want another Hunger Games, not even if you would've died in a bomb attack!" Since I have nothing to answer, I stay silent. Peeta's gives me an angry look now that says: how could you?** **It's almost like we're back in the room with the one way glass and he's calling me a mutt. Maybe that's where he is right now, maybe he was on the mend, but my remark might've made the way back open again. Luckily Coin feels I'm in a tight spot, so **she says, "Haymitch, it's up to you."

**Peeta furiously **hammers Haymitch with the atrocity he could become party to, but I can feel Haymitch watching me. This is the moment, then. When we find out exactly just how alike we are, and how much he truly understands me.

"I'm with the Mockingjay," says.

"Excellent. That carries the vote," says Coin. "Now we really must take our places for the execution."

As she passes me, I hold up the glass with the rose. "Can you see that Snow's wearing this? Just over his heart?"

Coin smiles. "Of course. And I'll make sure he knows about the Games."

"Thank you," I say.

People sweep into the room, surround me. The last touch of powder, the instructions from Plutarch as I'm guided to the front doors of the mansion. The City Circle runs over, spills people down the side streets. The others take their places outside. Guards. Officials. Rebel leaders. Victors. I hear the cheers that indicate Coin has appeared on the balcony. Then Effie taps my shoulder, and I step out into the cold winter sunlight. Walk to my position, accompanied by the deafening roar of the crowd. As directed, I turn so they see me in profile, and wait. When they march Snow out the door, the audience goes insane. They secure his hands behind a post, which is unnecessary. He's not going anywhere. There's nowhere to go. This is not the roomy stage before the Training Centre but the narrow terrace in front of the president's mansion. No wonder no one bothered to have me practise. He's ten metres away.

**Then President Coin is starting to talk. "Dear citizens of Panem. Today is a great day! Today you'll be witnessing the execution of President Snow, the deep begin of all your pain and despair." The crowd is screaming now. I hear some wom****en shout "My children!" or "Let him burn!". "In a vote, casted just minutes ago, the remainder of the victors have agreed to one last Hunger Games. The children of the ones in position of power have been sentenced to participate." Now the crowd is silent for some seconds. Do they understand what this implicates? That the vicious circle will never stop with another Hunger Games? Some people seem to agree to it, vengeance controlling them. Others cast angry looks to President Coin, clearly not agreeing with her. Gale's one of them. I try not to look at him, not wanting to make clear my intentions. Instead, I look at Snow, whose shirt is pure white with deep red stains. He grins a little, as if to say: "I taught you well, Katniss." **

**Coin continues, "Now, Katniss will open the first chapter of a new life, by killing Snow who's been sentenced to death for his crimes." That's my cue.**

I feel the bow purring in my hand. Reach back and grasp the arrow. Position it, aim at the rose, but watch his face. He coughs and a bloody dribble runs down his face. His tongue flicks over his puffy lips. I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything **other than some sort of joy, I'm looking for **fear, remorse, anger. **But there isn't. **Only the same look of amusement, **like the one he had **that ended our last conversation. It's as if he's speaking the words again. "_Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other._"

He's right. We did.

**So to show that,** the point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.


	3. Chapter 27 part I

_Heey! Hoped you liked it so far.. I did :P The biggest changes will come now._

_Please read and review! Are my characters reacting like they should? Are they off character? Please tell me what you think.. I don't really need inspiration (inspiration in abundance) but I need review so I'll if it's worth posting!_

_Enjoy!_

Chapter 27 part I

In the stunned reaction that follows, I'm aware of one sound. Snow's laughter. An awful gurgling cackle accompanied by an eruption of foamy blood when the coughing begins. I see him bend forward, spewing out his life, until the guards block him from my sight.

As the grey uniforms begin to converge on me, I think of what my brief future as the assassin of Panem's new president holds. The interrogation, probable torture, certain public execution. Having, yet again, to say my final goodbyes to the handful of people who still maintain a hold on my heart. The prospect of facing my mother, who will now be entirely alone in the world, decides it.

"Goodnight," I whisper to the bow in my hand and feel it go still. I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink into flesh. I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Peeta's eyes, only now they hold my gaze. **The angry look still hasn't fully disappeared off his face, but there's also pity in it now. And determination.** Blood runs from the teeth marks on the hand he clamped over my nightlock. "Let me go!" I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp.

"I can't," he says. **Before I can sort out what he truly was saying,** they pull me away from him, and I feel the pocket ripped from my sleeve, see the deep violet pill fall to the ground, watch Cinna's last gift get crunched under a guard's boot. I transform into a wild animal, kicking, clawing, biting, doing whatever I can to free myself from this web of hands as the crowd pushes in. **I see Peeta removing himself from me, now I have no longer a pill to claim my life. His job is done. He kept me alive, again. But there might be another way out.** The guards lift me up above the fray, where I continue to thrash as I'm conveyed over the crush of people. I start screaming for Gale. I can't find him in the throng, but he will know what I want. A good clean shot to end it all. Only there's no arrow, no bullet. Is it possible he can't see me? No. Above us, on the giant screens placed around the City Circle, everyone can watch the whole thing being played out. He sees, he knows, but he doesn't follow through. Just as I didn't when he was captured. **Is he trying to get even? Or doesn't he want me to die, just like Peeta? Because of my own wild actions, I can't trace him in the crowd.**

I'm on my own.

In the mansion, they handcuff and blindfold me. I'm half dragged, half carried down long passages, up and down lifts, and deposited on a carpeted floor. The cuffs are removed and a door slams closed behind me. When I push the blindfold up, I find I'm in my old room at the Training Centre. The one where I lived during those last precious days before my first Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell. The bed's stripped to the mattress, the closet gapes open, showing the emptiness inside, but I'd know this room anywhere.

It's a struggle to get to my feet and peel off my Mockingjay suit. I'm badly bruised and might have a broken finger of two, but it's my skin that's paid most dearly for my struggle with the guards. The new pink stuff has shredded like tissue paper and blood seeps through the laboratory-grown cells. No medics show up, though, and as I'm too far gone to care, I crawl up onto the mattress, expecting to bleed to death.

No such luck. By evening, the blood clots, leaving me stiff and sore and sticky but alive. I limp into the shower and programme the gentlest cycle I can remember, free of any soaps and hair products, and squat under the warm spray, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead. It would be best for everyone if I were dead…_

When I step out on the mat, the hot air bakes my damaged skin dry. There's nothing clean to put on. Not even towel to wrap around me. Back in the room, I find the Mockingjay suit has disappeared. In its place is a paper robe. A meal has been sent up from the mysterious kitchen with a container of my medications for dessert. I go ahead and eat the food, take the pills, rub the salve on my skin. I need to focus now on the manner of my suicide.

I curl back up on the bloodstained mattress, not cold but feeling so naked with just the paper to cover my tender flesh. Jumping to my death's not an option – the window glass must be half a metre thick. I can make an excellent noose, but there's nothing to hang myself from. It's possible I could hoard my pills and then knock myself off with a lethal dose, except that I'm sure I'm being watched round the clock. For all I know, I'm on live television at this very moment while commentators try to analyse what could possibly have motivated me to kill Coin. The surveillance makes almost any suicide attempt impossible. Taking my life is the Capitol's privilege. Again.

What I can do is give up. I resolve to lie on the bed without eating, drinking or taking my medications. I could do it, too. Just die. If it weren't for the morphling withdrawal. Not bit by bit like in the hospital in 13, but cold turkey. I must have been on a fairly large dose because when the craving for it hits, accompanied by tremors, and shooting pains, and unbearable cold, my resolve's crushed like an eggshell. **So much for my suicide attempt. **I'm on my knees, raking the carpet with my fingernails to find those precious pills I flung away in a stronger moment, **not caring about my dignity, or what's left of it. **I revise my suicide plan to slow death by morphling. I will become a yellow-skinned bag of bones, with enormous eyes. I'm a couple of days into the plan, making good progress, when something unexpected happens.

I begin to sing. At the window, in the shower, in my sleep. Hour after hour of ballads, love songs, mountain airs. All the songs my father taught me before he died, for certainly there has been very little music in my life since. What's amazing is how clearly I remember them. The tunes, the lyrics. My voice, at first rough and breaking on the high notes, warms up into something splendid. A voice that would make the mockingjays fall silent and then tumble over themselves to join in. Days pass, weeks. I watch the snow fall on the ledge outside my window. And in all that time, mine is the only voice I hear.

**When I sing, I loose my grip on reality. With my eyes open, I see people, just like they used to be. Prim and mother, curled up on a bed together. They both have a smile on their faces. Gale, with a filled game bag over his shoulder and handing over a beautiful flower as he always does on my birthday. His eyes sparkle as they only do when he's in the woods with me. My father. He is pointing at the mockingjay sitting in front of us. It's listening to me.**

**As every mental state that brings me peace, it doesn't last long.**

What are they doing, anyway? What's the holdup out there? How difficult can it be to arrange the execution of one murderous girl? I continue with my own annihilation. My body's thinner than it's ever been and my battle against hunger is so fierce that sometimes the animal part of me gives in to the temptation of buttered bread of roasted meat. But still, I'm winning. For a few days I feel quite unwell and think I may finally be travelling out of this life, when I realize my morphling tablets are shrinking. They are trying to slowly wean me off the stuff. But why? Surely a drugged Mockingjay will be easier to dispose of in front of a crowd. And then a terrible thought hits me: what if they're not going to kill me? What if they have more plans for me? A new way to remake, train, and use me?

I won't do it. If I can't kill myself in this room, I will take the first opportunity outside of it to finish the job. They can fatten me up. They can give me a full body polish, dress me up and make me beautiful again. They can design dream weapons that come to life in my hands, but they will never again brainwash me into the necessity of using them. I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despite being one myself. I think Peeta was on to something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children's lives to settle its differences. You can spin it any way you like. Snow thought the Hunger Games were an efficient means of control. Coin thought the parachutes would expedite the war. But in the end, who does it benefit? No one. The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.

After two days of my lying on my mattress with no attempt to eat, drink, or even take a morphling tablet, the door to my room opens. Someone crosses around the bed into my field of vision. Haymitch. "Your trial's over," he says. "Come on. We're going home."

Home? What's he talking about? My home's gone. And even if it were possible to go to this imaginary place, I am too weak to move. Strangers appear. Rehydrate and feed me. Bathe and clothe me. One lifts me like a rag doll and carries me up to the roof, on to a hovercraft, and fastens me into a seat. Haymitch and Plutarch sit across from me. In a few moments, we're airborne.

I've never seen Plutarch in such a good mood. He's positively glowing. "You must have a million questions!" When I don't respond, he answers them anyway.

After I shot Coin, there was pandemonium. When the ruckus died down, they discovered Snow's body, still tethered to the post. Opinions differ on whether he choked to death while laughing or was crushed by the crowd. No one really cares. An emergency election was thrown together and Paylor was voted in as president. Plutarch was appointed secretary of communications, which means he sets the programming for the airwaves. The first big televised event was my trial, in which he was also a start witness. In my defence, of course. Although most of the credit for my exoneration must be given to Dr Aurelius, who apparently earned his naps by presenting me as a hopeless, shell-shocked lunatic. One condition for my release is that I'll continue under his care, although it will have to be by phone because he'd never live in a forsaken place like 12, and I'm confined there until further notice. The truth is, no one quite knows what to do with me now that the war's over, although if another one should spring up, Plutarch's sure they could find a role for me. Then Plutarch has a good laugh. It never seems to bother him when no one else appreciates his jokes.

"Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?" I ask.

"Oh, not now. Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated," he says. **Immediately after Paylor was chosen president, she declared that the oncoming Hunger Games would never take place, and almost everyone agreed with her that the Capitol citizenry should be forgiven after it was proven they haven't commit war crimes.** "But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss."

"What?" I ask.

"The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that." And then he asks me if I'd like to perform on a new singing programme he's launching in a few weeks. Something upbeat would be good. He'll send the crew to my house.

We land briefly in District 3 to drop off Plutarch. He's meeting with Beetee to update the technology on the broadcast system. His parting words to me are "Don't be a stranger."

When we're back among the clouds, I look at Haymitch. "So why are you going back to Twelve?"

"They can't seem to find a place for me in the Capitol either," he says.

At first, I don't question this. But doubts begin to creep in. Haymitch hasn't assassinated anyone. He could go anywhere. If he's coming back to 12, it's because he's been ordered to. "You have to look after me, don't you? As my mentor?" He shrugs. Then I realize what it mean. "My mother's not coming back."

"No," he says. He pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. I examine the delicate, perfectly formed writing. "She's helping to start up a hospital in District Four. She wants you to call as soon as we get in." My finger traces the graceful swoop of the letters. "You know why she can't come back." Yes, I know why. Because between my father and Prim and the ashes, the place is too painful to bear. **My mother and I, we've had a difficult relationship since my father died. I try to remember the last time she actually cared for me, in a way that a mother should take care for her daughter. I can't. And now, when I might even need her more than ever, she isn't there for me, hides away so she won't have to face her fairs again. The place, it's **apparently not **too painful** for me. "Do you want to know who else won't be there?" Plutarch asks.

"No," I say. "I want to be surprised."

Like a good mentor, Haymitch makes me eat a sandwich and then pretends he believes I'm asleep for the rest of the trip. He busies himself going through every compartment on the hovercraft, finding the liquor and stowing it in his bag. It's night when we land on the green of the Victor's Village. Half of the houses have lights in the windows, including Haymitch's and mine. Not Peeta's. Someone has built a fire in my kitchen. I sit in the rocker before it, clutching my mother's letter.

"Well, see you tomorrow," says Haymitch.

As the clinking of his bag of liquor bottles fades away, I whisper, "I doubt it."

I am unable to move from the chair. The rest of the house looms cold and empty and dark. I pull an old shawl over my body and watch the flames. I guess I sleep, because the next thing I know, it's morning and Greasy Sae's banging around at the stove. **I want to scream at her, "leave me alone", but I'm too weak to even make a sound. I wish they all would just leave me alone. I don't want anyone to interfere with my life again. I know now that my suicide attempts were all in vain when I was a prisoner in my own room, my body won't let me die. It wants to live. But my mind doesn't. I want to be alone for the remainder of my life, to sort out what has become of me. I yell in my head to Greasy Sae, not wanting her presence here. Still, **she makes me eggs and toast and sits there until I've eaten it all. We don't talk much. Her little granddaughter, the one who lives in her own world, takes a bright blue ball of yarn from my mother's knitting basket. Greasy Sae tells her to put it back, but I say she can have it. No one in this house can knit any more. After Breakfast, Greasy Sae does the dishes and leaves, but she comes back up at dinnertime to make me eat again. I don't know if she's just being neighbourly or if she's on the government's payroll, but she shows up twice every day. She cooks, I consume. I try to figure out my next move. **So killing myself was hard in a room where I felt many eyes watching me, taking care of me not committing suicide. **There's no obstacle now to taking my life. But I seem to be waiting for something.

Sometimes the phone rings and rings and rings, but I don't pick it up. Haymitch never visits. Maybe he changed his mind and left, although I suspect he's just drunk. No one comes but Greasy Sae and her granddaughter, **who I, after so many visits, can stand in my house now. Since I don't speak anymore, it's hard to tell them to get lost. Instead, they keep talking to me. **After months of solitary confinement, **even** they seem like a crowd.

"Spring's in the air today. You ought to get out," she says. "Go hunting."

I haven't left the house. I haven't even left the kitchen except to go to the small bathroom a few steps off of it. I'm in the same clothes I left the Capitol in. What I do is sit by the fire. Stare at the unopened letters piling up on the mantel. **I'm not even the slightest curious who might've send them. Then, I look at Greasy Sae, and start wondering how she's gotten her nickname. Her hear isn't greasy. Her soups weren't either. I remember many of them, and how she always made them for the hungry, for a fair price. She never profited much from it. So, after a long time, I clear my throat and answer: **"I don't have a bow." **She looks amazed by me finally answering. I get a faint blush and turn my head away, not wanting to continue the conversation. Those words were almost too much. I don't have a bow anymore, nor a best friend to go hunting with. It would never be the same again, so why even bothering to go?**

**Greasy Sae clearly displays hope on her face so she answers me: "You know, maybe I can get Gale to bring those over… I think I'm not allowed to tell you this, but president Paylor has said to me that it's probably for the best that your bow didn't make the trip to 12, it might bring up memories. But I think it might help you, you were always so happy to be able to go out…" She talks along but I don't listen, in my head I try to block out every possible thought. I even start to rock my chair a little so I can hear another sound next to her voice. Greasy Sae notices and leaves the room, I'm not sure if she was offended or just sad. I think I don't care.**

**The next day, Greasy Sae just returns to my house and makes my breakfast. She seems a bit more animated as usual. I don't ask why. "Now, you seem to be getting better everyday, at least physically." I know that that's true. Though I'm only sitting on this chair, having no exercise at all, I can feel my skin getting more soft, indicating that a layer of fat is forming for the first time in my life. My ribs aren't sticking out anymore. Even my cheeks seem more fleshy. But I don't have the motivation to evaluate my mental state.**

**Then the doorbell rings. It's not the first time since I moved back here. Loads of people I knew from my old life in 12 came to visit me, but Greasy Sae didn't let them in. I guess she picked up signs that told her I didn't want to see people. Victor Village of District Twelve also became a tourist' spot. Other districts people, Capitol people, they all wanted to see me. They still think of me as the Mockingjay. Fierce and proud. Greasy Sae said no to all of them, sending them away.**

**So I'm a bit shocked when I hear several voices in the corridor.**

_Owkeej, so I'm not really good with cliffy's :) Who do you think will show up? How will he or she be treated? Tell me!_

_Greetzz Aranka_


	4. Chapter 27 part II

Chapter 27 part II

**I'm even more shocked when I see my mother and Peeta in the doorway. First, I can't believe my eyes. I haven't seen Peeta since the day he prevented me killing myself. I tried not to think that often of him. It hurts. Still. I still remember his fiery eyes when he called me a mutt. I'm glad not to see those eyes now, but after that first sensation, there is anger. It's not only directed at Peeta, for not letting me live my life as I wanted to, but also at my mother. She stands there, with her hands helpless stretched a little in front of her as if to say: Come here, Katniss, come and get a hug. I don't want this and I don't need this. She's never felt like my mom as she must have felt for Prim. She probably has wished it was me who died by the bombs and not her. Not her favourite daughter. **

**My anger rises. I try to stand up in one movement but fail tremendously. My muscles are so stiff. Then I manage to stand upright and I start yelling. At first, my voice is hurting very much, since it hasn't been used in this way for very long. I yell, because it feels good. Because I had to say those many things I've never done. I don't feel like I'm cruel. It had to happen some time. My mother gets to hear every bit of misery she's put me through since dad died. Like I said before, I'm not the forgiving type. She had children to take care of what she didn't. I don't mind when she starts crying, in fact, it makes me angrier. **

**"Please Katniss, it's not her fault." Peeta's trying to calm me down by caressing my shoulder but that's only making me hysterical. I yank back my body and aim my yelling now at him. Something tells me it's not fair what I'm doing but hey, life isn't fair. It has been said before and I keep proving the words: I would never deserve a guy like Peeta. I don't know in what way my tirade against him will affect him. I don't care. So I scream at him how he has abandoned me in the last seconds of the Quarter Quell, how he ruined the chances for the Star Squad by showing up, killing Mitchell, how he didn't had the right to take control of my life. He still tries to say something to me, but don't listen, I don't want to hear reason, explanations. I only hear my own shrieks.**

**By now, my voice has broken ten times over but still I am yelling. Tears are pouring down my cheeks. Every time someone is trying to approach me, I lash out. It seems like Peeta doesn't want to hurt me, so he backs off. He doesn't know how to calm me down, for once he doesn't know which words to say. My mother is a wretched little creature on the ground. Greasy Sae doesn't know what to do or what to say either. So finally, when I'm starting to loose my voice, she helps my mother on her feet and gives her over to Peeta, who holds on to her tight and directs her to the door. He is furious, I can tell; he only has his eyes on my mother and talks softly to her, the whispered words I'm not able to hear.**

**When I hear the door closing, I clamber into my chair and start rocking again, more frantically.**

**Greasy Sae doesn't return. It's not like I was waiting for her to come over and make me breakfast – I don't care if I eat or not – but I noticed the change in everyday routine. Instead, every morning there's a basket full of food, which I'm supposed to eat. I found this out when I started wandering around the house looking for Greasy Sae. I took the basket inside to the kitchen and went for my chair again. After several hours, it feels like my stomach is attached to my back, so I get up to see what's in it. Some peeled potatoes, some berries and vegetables. And a leaf of bread, beautifully shaped like a shell and decorated with fishes which were painted on with some sort of colouring matter. Of course, I immediately know who's giving me that one.**

**I go back to my mourning, but now in silence and alone. Days go by and I eat of my basket, returning it to the door whenever it's empty. It's always full the next day. **

**Usually I stay awake until deep in the night, afraid of the nightmares. It's been so long since I had strong arms around me to comfort me. The nightmares have changed though. It's not the water anymore, with it's arms to pull me under. Now, **I'm lying at the bottom of a deep grave, and every dead person I know by name comes by and throws a shovel full of ashes on me. It's quite a long dream, considering the list of people, and the deeper I'm buried, the harder it is to breathe. I try to call out, begging them to stop, but the ashes fill my mouth and nose and I can't make any sound. Still the shovel scrapes on and on and on… **When it feels like only my eyes are above the ashes, others come by, this time dead and alive, and they come to yell at me. Peeta's one of them. Pointing out every mistake I've made which resulted in the deaths of the people I loved. Spitting in my face. Some of the people eventually start to scare me with spears and knives, pointing in my direction, trying to poke my eyes out.** ~**Forever in one's dream, one's forever in the games.~**

**The longer I stay in the house, the more I start to hate it. The cracks in the kitchen are becoming too familiar. It's the place were my mother and Prim lived happily since a long time. I can't bear the silence now. Secretly, I am wishing Greasy Sae will come back someday, not to talk to me, but just to be there. Now it just feels suffocating. I manage sometime to go through the door and I hold still on the doorstep, unsure if I want to go on or not. The first time, I saw several people looking at me, in total bewilderment. I fled back in the house the same instant. The next time, I was smart enough to go out at night. I made it to the fence, which used to be charged sometimes, but now just stands there to keep the wild animals out. I guess it's not illegal anymore to go out. I crawl under the gap and stumble into the woods. A thought crossed my mind. Will I come back? **

**Even in the dark it isn't hard to find the meeting place of Gale and me. **I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it's too wide without Gale's body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did.

**After that first night, I come back there often. I'm glad to be alone, loving the sound of the woods. Little animals dare come closer now. A mockingjay flies over, singing an unfamiliar tune. I can't say I find rest in the woods. Even there, when I am drifting into a midday nap, the first thing that shoots before my eyes are the dead. **The scraping of the shovel **always **continues. Still in the nightmare, I run **through the forest, go under the fence, into my house, because there **I'm pretty sure I can scream at the dead **and that they will listen**.

**My little trips to the woods aren't unnoticed, but every one let me. Maybe they don't care if I never come back. Still, every time, I reappear some time, some how, into my house again. I don't know if my mood is getting worse by going to the woods, but it also doesn't improve. Pieces are still missing.**

**One day, in the morning before having decided to go to the woods, I hear scraping outside of my house. I'm trembling in my chair in the kitchen, it's the first time a nightmare seemed so real when I am awake.**

_Hehe, sorry, this one was a bit short. But it was the best part to stop _

_Who'd ever thought Peeta would show up and get that kind of welcoming? I did. I really thought it did.__ And I thought it was realistic. Her mental state is like really crazy. She's just seventeen and has seen awful things..I think, since after Catching Fire, no-one had the right to put her through those things. Okay, maybe she was necessary for the war. Maybe her wasted mental state was the price for winning the war.._

_But still.._

_You'll also get to hear the reason why Katniss thinks she did it, just read the next chapter._

_Oh and one other __thing.. My inspiration.. I'm totally in love with Twilight (and yes, because I really didn't like Mockingjay's end, Twilight's still on my number one favourite series :P).. And the music from the movie Eclipse, I truly love it! So please go and listen to:_

_Heavy on in your arm, by Florence + the Machine and_

_My love, by Sia.. Especially this one can move me to tears any moment, where ever I am __, this song I listened to (on and on, with no other songs) when writing this story._

_Oh and one last thing: My all time favourite band, Kamelot, just brought out a new CD, LOVED IT.. And then.. I listened to one song (the title caught my attention): hunter's season.. And please just look at the lyrics:_

Someone to protect and be protected by

When that certain fury would come

Someone to respect and be respected by

When deprivation took its toll on you

No more to defend fading away

Cause we were always alone

We were born in the hunter's season

All I really ever wanted

Was for you to die

In the arms of someone

Someone to remember

Hold me to the ground

When the sudden glory is gone

No more to defend

But someone to love

It's destiny

That falls upon you

Cause nothing remains

So long

Only a miracle

Could have killed the pain

you see

_Now you're gone_

In silent custody

You meet my eyes

Though life is long

_I know you'll wait for me_

You know it too

_Please R&R! For my reviewers so far: many thanks!_


	5. Chapter 27 part III

Chapter 27 part III

**Then my ears pick up the sound of a door being closed. I stand up. No one has come into my house since that awful meeting with Peeta and my mother. I don't want any other bad memory added to the existing ones I have of the house already. Then, I see Gale. He comes in with firm steps. I start yelling. I really feel like I'm going mad. I yell again all the awful things in the world. A few days after the Peeta-and-mother-incident, I figured out I only did it as to push them away from me. I'm not healthy for anyone's mental health, and I guess they have already enough to face themselves without my own petty problems. I want Gale to go as well. Even now, I see our last conversation flashing before my eyes, in which I said I wouldn't forgive him. I yell. And hit him when he still approaches. My yells become screams. Madman – and women – are very strong. But Gale seems to be stronger. When I fight like crazy to keep him away from me, he just grabs my arms and forces them down. I scream at him the same words I screamed at Peeta. How dares he to decide what I should want to do with my life? Why didn't he kill me when I shot Coin? Why didn't he leave my life, he knows I won't forgive him. Then he just puts his arms around me, freeing my hands. He hugs me real tight. I try to scratch off the skin of his body, but my arms are locked. After a while, my forces are decreasing and I can't fight him off. So I go limp in his arms. The screams have turned into sobs. I feel an emotion in me I can't name.**

** Gale doesn't say a thing. He doesn't cry. Or, I guess he doesn't since I can't see his face. He always knew what to do in whatever state I was. Always knew what to say – or not to say. Now, his breathing is even where mine is uneven and with hiccups. I want to say something. **

** "You're back?" It was supposed to be a question but it also seemed like a sigh.**

** "I wanted to come earlier, but Greasy Sae said she had the idea it was a battle you had to fight yourself. She told me she would contact me as soon as she thought was best to come by. For your sake. So I went to District Two instead."**

** He leads me to the living room where the dust has accumulated on the couch. Gale doesn't seem to care and just placed me on it. My brain works slow so it takes a while before I can articulate my next question.**

** "What did you do?"**

** "They provided me some jobs. With they I mean the new authorities of Two." With one look on my face he sees I have no idea who that might be. I haven't exactly been interested in the reconstruction of the nation by the time I had someone to ask about it. "I'll tell you later." I don't think much of that. He already thinks there will be a later.**

He looks well. **Muscular** and covered with burn scars like me, **but his hands included. He doesn't have the angry façade anymore as he did in Two, when we had to crack the Nut. It's like some peace has gone over him. But I can see as well that that peace didn't come today. The strange stirring in my stomach is unfamiliar.**

** "After a few weeks, I got a telephone from Greasy Sae. She told me about the visit of your mom and Peeta." He tries to catch my eye, but I'm too embarrassed and turn away. I just gave him the same treatment. But he didn't take it. Just as he isn't taking it now. He puts his hand under my chin and pulls my face up so he can see my eyes. "I understand." That's all he says. He understands. "May I show you something?" I nod. While he helps me getting up he tells, "**I went to the woods **early** this morning and dug **some flowers** up. For her," he says. **We've reached the door now and he opens it for me. **"I thought **you'd like it if I planted **them along the side of the house."

I look at the bushes, the clods of dirt hanging from their roots, and catch my breath as the word _rose_ registers. I'm about to yell vicious things at **Gale again** when the full name comes to me. Not plain rose but evening primrose. The flower my sister was named for. I give **Gale** a nod of assent. **"Do you mind? I've been so terribly sorry, and I know that saying a thousand times sorry won't help. I… I loved her too. I don't want to stir up our last conversation, but still… I thought… I was a little taken aback when you thought me capable of killing children needlessly."**

** "I know you don't," I softly whisper, remembering a mental debate of my own.**

** "As I knew you wouldn't really wanted to have a last Hunger Games. Johanna told me about the voting."**

** "For Prim, I voted yes to get Coin's attention off of me. For Prim, I killed her."**

** "I know." After that, I** hurry back into the house, locking the door behind me. **But as I know since a long time,** the evil thing is inside, not out. Trembling with weakness and anxiety, I run up the stairs. My foot catches on the last step and I crash on to the floor. I force myself to rise and enter my room. The smell's very faint but still laces the air. It's there. The white rose among the dried flowers in the vase. Shrivelled and fragile, but holding on to that unnatural perfection cultivated in Snow's greenhouse. I grab the vase, stumble down to the kitchen and throw its contents into the embers. As the flowers flare up, a burst of blue flame envelops the rose and devours it. Fire beats roses again. I smash the vase on the floor for good measure.

Back upstairs, I throw open the bedroom windows to clear out the rest of Snow's stench. But it still lingers, on my clothes and in my pores. I strip, and flakes of skin the size of playing cards cling to the garments. Avoiding the mirror, I step into the shower and scrub the roses from my hair, my body, my mouth. Bright pink and tingling, I find something clean to wear. It takes half an hour to comb out my hair. I return downstairs and feed the clothes I had shed to the fire. Then I pare off my nails with a knife.

**Looking out of the window, I see the primroses planted along the side of the house. I unlock the door and run back to the bedroom, where I fall down on my bed and drift into sleep. I am not dreaming peacefully, far from it, but at least, the yelling part has stopped.**

** I finally got a decent sleep. I don't know if Gale's the reason for it, or the bed, but I manage to sleep through the whole day and partly through the night. When I wake, I'm wondering where Gale's sleeping. His house is ruined by the bombing of 12. The rest of the night, I'm lying comfortably on the bed, having uncomfortable daydreams.**

** The morning didn't come early enough. When I was about to head off to the woods, I find a large bag full of stuff. I take it inside and turn it upside down on the kitchen table. I find **my father's hunting jacket, our plant book, my parents' wedding photo, the spile Haymitch sent in, and the locket Peeta gave me in the clock arena. **I'm wondering how Gale's gotten it in his possession.** **The pile of things also contains **the two bows and a sheath of arrows Gale **must've **rescued on the night of the firebombing. I put on the hunting jacket and leave the rest of the stuff untouched. **I rush to the fence and go under it and walk to the meeting place. Of course he's not there. I certainly didn't expect him to be there. I make the old round along the snares. None of them are set of course, so I try to do it. It's been a long time, but I decide the snares are good enough for some animals to fall for. **

It is the old Katniss's favourite kind of day. Early spring. The woods awakening after the long winter.

**When I return to the Meadow, I spot **teams of masked and gloved people with horse-drawn carts. Sifting through what lay under the snow this winter. Gathering remains. A cart's parked in front of the mayor's house. I recognize Thom, Gale's old crewmate, pausing a moment to wipe the sweat from his face with a rag. I remember seeing him in 13, but he must have come back. His greeting gives me the courage to ask, "Did they find anyone in there?"

**He apparently isn't really surprised that I'm speaking again to people. But still, unconsciously, he isn't gently with me. **"Whole family. And the two people who worked for them," Thom tells me.

Madge. Quiet and kind and brave. The girl who gave me the pin that gave me a name. I swallow hard. Wonder if she'll be joining the cast of my nightmares tonight. Shoveling the ashes into my mouth. "I thought maybe, since he was the mayor…"

"I don't think being the mayor of Twelve put the odds in his favour," says Thom.

I nod and keep moving, careful not to look in the back of the cart. All through the town and the Seam, it's the same. The reaping of the dead. As I near the ruins of my old house, the road becomes thick with carts. The Meadow's gone, or at least dramatically altered. A deep pit has been dug, and they're lining it with bones, a mass grave for my people. **When I'm too sad to go on, I turn around and walk straight for home.**

** I'm entering my home when **my head snaps around at **a** hiss, but it takes a while to believe he's real. How could he have got here? I take in the claw marks from some wild animal, the back paw he holds slightly above the ground, the prominent bones in his face. He's come on foot, then, all the way from 13. Maybe they kicked him out or maybe he just couldn't stand it there without her, so he came looking.

"It was a waste of a trip. She's not here," I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. "She's not here. You can hiss all you like. You won't find Prim." At her name, he perks up. Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. "Get out!" He dodges the pillow I throw at him. "Go away! There's nothing left for you here!" I start to shake, furious with him. "She's not coming back! She's never ever coming back here again!" I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. "She's dead." I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. "She's dead, you stupid cat. She's dead." A new sound, part crying, part singing, comes out of my body, giving voice to my despair. Buttercup begins to wail as well. No matter what I do, he won't go. He circles me, just out of reach, as wave after wave of sobs rack my body, until eventually I fall unconscious. But he must understand. He must know that the unthinkable has happened and to survive will require previously unthinkable acts. Because hours later, when I come to in my bed, he's there in the moonlight. Crouched beside me, yellow eyes alert, guarding me from the night.

_JEAYYYY! Finally GALE HAWTHORNE! He just knew exactly what Katniss needed. My explanation for the thing that happened: After that many time in 12, she was like a puzzle, broken into pieces and not put back together good__ (like two pieces who shouldn't be put together being put together), so some pieces don't fit. If you don't break up the wrong pieces, your whole puzzle would contain many mistakes. So when Gale comes, at first, she tries to reject him as she did to Peeta. Though Peeta gave in, trying not to hurt her (and putting more pieces wrong), Gale just knew what Katniss needed: a person whom she can vent her feelings to (or: to break up all the pieces of her puzzle). Then Buttercup came along, and that was the last two pieces being pulled apart. In what way Katniss rebuilds her own puzzle, you can read in the next chapter part.. Please do read and review!_


	6. Chapter 27 Final part

_Please Read and Review!_

Chapter 27 part IV

In the morning, he sits stoically as I clean the cuts, but digging the thorn from his paw brings on a round of those kitten mews. We both end up crying again, only this time we comfort each other. On the strength of this, I open the letter Haymitch gave me from my mother. **I still feel as guilty over my behaviour towards her as I did back then. In the letter is a phone number to a house in District Four. **I dial the phone number and **start to cry as soon as she picks it up. Not long after that, she weeps with me as well.** **During the wet conversation, Gale comes in with the usual basket of food. Greasy Sae comes in after him. I feel embarrassed but she says nothing and just goes on to work. **She makes us breakfast and I feed all my bacon to Buttercup.

**I also feel the need to call Dr Aurelius back. I think some of the call I got months ago might've been his'. I excuse for my behaviour and promise him to stay put to his treatment.**

Slowly, with many lost days, I come back to life. I try to follow Dr Aurelius's advice, just going through the motions, amazed when one finally has meaning again.

**Gale and I hunt again together. We don't speak much, Gale's letting me decide our pace of rebuilding our friendship. I can't forgive him that easily, but the hunting helps. It reminds me of old days, which were maybe days of oppression, but some days were also one's of happiness. **

**When I give Dr Aurelius a ring again, **I tell him my idea about the book, and a large box of parchment sheets arrives on the next train from the Capitol.

I got the idea from our family's plant book. The place where we recorded those things you cannot trust to memory. The pages begins with the person's picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, **I have got to do it with a extensive description. In some moments, I miss Peeta's ability of painting.** Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim's cheek. My father's laugh. The colour of Finnick's eyes. **The mayor with his strawberries and Madge to his side. **What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. **Gale and I complete each other. I bring the words meant for the ones I knew from the Hunger Games. He writes pages full about the bombing of 12 and the acts of heroism made then, the lives it has cost to save others.** We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie's newborn son. **She and her little boy came by one day, after she was convinced I didn't really vote yes to a new Hunger Games. I looked at her son and asked her if they both were happy; she shrugged and only answered: "As happy as possible." I saw a tear glistering in her eyes.**

We learn to keep busy again. **Besides my hunting sessions with Gale, which are taking more and more time, since there's a great need of fresh meat, I'm trying to participate more in the rebuilding of my district. Gale's joined the working crew the day he came back to me. **Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives. Fortunately, the geese can take pretty good care of themselves. We're not alone. A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home. With the mines closed, they plow the ashes into the earth and plant food. Machines from the Capitol break ground for a new factory where we will make medicines. Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again.

**Gale and I grow back together. I have learned to live with the idea of him having a faint line which connect him to the death of Prim. He is caring. His revolution spirit has died away since his deep hatred for the Capitol wasn't needed anymore. Some times, when he sees in my eyes a sadness, mixed with anger, he knows he has to go and be busy with his own things, he knows those moods always disappear after a while. **I **still** wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. **Sometimes I notice I long for a different pair of arms. Arms just as strong as result of a life long baking. But I don't dare to call Peeta again. Gale once told me he heard Peeta's gone living in District Four. I guess he's helping out my mother. I'm afraid of his reaction. The faint relation we managed to build up again after he got hijacked, I think it's damaged so badly, it won't ever be there again. Gale disagrees.**

**One day, after many hunting days in the woods, we find ourselves feeling like we have a day like before, before the Hunger Games. Only one thing has changed. We laugh now – not only in the woods, but also outside. When I help Gale aiming for a target, I feel a warm fire running through my fingers where they touch his skin. When we're sitting together, at our meeting place, shoulder to shoulder, deciding what to do today, I feel a need deep down in my stomach. My hands find his' and hold tight. **Eventually, **my lips find his' as well. I must admit that I didn't expect my hunger for him to be as big as his' was for me.**

******One night, when Gale and I shared a bed – he had been sleeping at some friends' home but over time, he came more often to my house to spend the night – I felt a strange thing. Strange because it was partly familiar and partly unfamiliar. I recognized it as the feeling I had, **the hunger that overtook me **that night** on the beach. **Still it was unfamiliar because it was with Gale. When we kissed, I felt this feeling, every time more and more present. It was sweet****. He was very careful not to go too fast, always waiting for me. When I go along with my new feeling, **I know this would have happened anyway. What I need to survive is not **Peeta's kindness, his overprotective and overwhelming love for me. I don't need and don't want to be snowed under by love. I want understanding, but what's more, I want someone who hasn't been through the same experiences as I have. I need to tell my feelings to someone, who doesn't share my nightmares so he will be able to comfort me. Gale's quiet yet fierce love is all I want. And with him, I feel that **life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That **life** can be good again. And only** Gale **can give me that.

**So after, when he whispers, "I love you," I don't think of my earlier answer, but immediately tell him, "I love you too."**

_You gave it all  
Give into the call_  
_You took a chance and you took a fall for us_

_Now I am strong  
You gave me all  
You gave all you had and__ now I am home_

Sia – My love

_So that's it! The end of chapter 27…. But there's more to come, the epilogue!_

_Please review! I can take critics!_

_Aranka_


	7. Epilogue

_Okay, the last of my story.. I want to thank everyone for their loving reviews, I really liked to write this story :) I hope I have made some of you very happy by offering an alternative ending which is more believable for some, at least it was for me. Sigh, Gale and Katniss are such a great couple..._

Epilogue

**They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl. The boy with the looks of someone from the old Seam, **dark hair and grey eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs.** When the girl turns to tickle her little brother, you can get the full appreciation of her long blond curls and blue eyes. **It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But **Gale **wanted them so badly. **He kept reminding me of our conversation the morning of the fatal reaping. I had said that I didn't want to have children because I was afraid that the Hunger Games might take them. He promised me that any child of mine, of this time, could grow up in peace and surrounded by love. Still, **when I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much.

**District 12 has changed. Whole Panem has changed. Under the fair leadership of president Paylor, new organizations and buildings have risen. Good schools for children. Decent hospitals. Orphans have been adopted. Still it's hard for the people to get used to the possibilities we have. District 12 still feels like they have to provide the coal, District 4 still fishes, District 1 is still in love with everything that glimmers. President Paylor does as much as she can to even the work over all the districts. People can travel to any district as they please. There's enough employment. The Capitol had to be build from the scratch. Transport had to be improved and so on. Gale and I did our part as well. We don't hunt anymore. Since people have started to breed chickens, turkeys, etc., it's not necessary anymore. Gale got a job in communications, taking care of telephone lines. He really started to get animated when he got a book in hands that had been lying around in a great library in the Capitol. It learned about how people used to communicate with each other and Gale talked about airwaves and little machines that could send messages, but I didn't understand what he was talking about so I just let him be.**

**Me, I teach children at school about plants and when my mother comes over to teach about medicine, I try to assist her, not trying to fill my sister's place. My mother is totally in love with my children. When my daughter was just a baby, she took her in her arms and cried her eyes out, the baby-blue eyes locked in hers. She's still not living in 12 but it is just because the hospital in Four takes a lot of her time. She comes over as much as she can.**

**Peeta's a different case. He also still lives in Four. Helping in the hospital. A few weeks after Gale and I got together, I collected all my courage and dialled his number. He answered the phone. He seemed pleased to hear my voice, but he didn't want me to come over to Four. Sometimes, he visited me in Twelve. Mostly when Gale was gone for work. They have never become friends. As for me, we're working on it. I want to have his friendship back. Still, I find it harder to call him every year. When I speak to him, every time a conversation flashes before my eyes, my first conversation with him after he was rescued. The words keep ringing in my head: "Well, you're a piece of work, aren't you?" How I walked away, upset. He was right of course. **

**My character has many flaws. He has always accepted those, but maybe my yelling was over the edge. Unjustifiable. He was the one who needed sympathy, not me. His love for me has always been wasted. He just had the possibility to see the whole of me, to know the real me, from every side. And he had to decide if I was worth loving. Apparently not. I'm glad he walked away when he first came to visit me in Twelve after we'd won. It was for the best for him.**

**He's found himself a nice girl in Four. I think her name is Tess. She's what he has deserved: friendly, good-natured, just like him. But first and foremost: she's a good shoulder to cry on for him. I know this because at some moments, when Peeta doesn't want to talk to me, I talk with her. I don't think she's actually fond of me, but I don't care, as long as she's fond of Peeta.**

**Although Gale and I don't hunt anymore, we still visit the woods often with our children. It's not like we are teaching them how to survive in the woods, but we feel like we have to show them how their parents used to live. My daughter loves the lake. She knows about the importance to me, knows her grandpa had something to do with it. Gale is teaching her how to swim while I watch them with my son. He wants to swim too but I think he's too young.**

**My children have started to grow fast. **The questions **about their parents lives **are just beginning. The arenas have been completely destroyed, the memorials built, there are no more Hunger Games. But they teach about **them and about the rebellion** at school, and the girl knows we played a role in them. The boy will know in a few years. How can I tell them about that world without frightening them to death? My children, who take the words of the song for granted:

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow_

_A bed of grass, a soft green pillow_

_Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes_

_And when again they open, the sun will rise._

_Here it's safe, here it's warm_

_Here the daisies guard you from every harm_

_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings _

_them true_

_Here is the place where I love you._

My children, who don't know they play on a graveyard.

**Gale** says it will be OK. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I'll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won't ever really go away.

I'll tell them how I survived it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.

But there are much worse games to play.

_Please review! Let me know if you liked the story :D _


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